Solicitors in Birmingham

How is negligence defined in legal terms ?

In very basic terms, there are 3 fundamental questions to succeed with a legal claim for negligence :-

• Legal duty of care needs to be owed to the victim.
• The duty of care needs to have been breached.
• Damage complained of can be shown to have been caused by the breach of duty.

Claims for negligence arise in variety of different and diverse circumstances. Each case is different in terms of proving breach and loss but it is generally fairly straightforward to demonstrate whether a duty of care was owed.

Who owes  a duty of care ?

The best way of thinking about this is common sense. An employer will clearly owe a duty of care to employees, a professional such as a solicitors, accountant, surveyor or doctor will owe a duty of care to clients and patients. a Local authority will generally owe a duty of care to those using road and pavements it is responsible for maintaining. These are the obvious situations where a duty of care arises, sometimes it is not so obvious and sometimes, the extent of the duty of care has limits.

Are there any financial risks with no win no fee injury claims ?

In contrast to the bad press given to lawyers and others (although some aggressive sales tactics are open to criticism), personal injury claims under a no win no fee agreement, backed up by insurance against the opponent’s legal costs (known as after the event insurance) is one of the few financially risk free types of claim. Really, it’s the lawyer that takes all the risk by backing his/her/their judgment by spending time, resource and often own money (for the after the event policy) rather than the client. Under the present system, another unusual advantage for the claimant is that there is generally a guarantee that all damages awarded are paid over to the client. Of course this does not detract from the pain and suffering a claimant endures, often on an ongoing basis.

Why are some claim large yet others small ?

Many people are surprised to discover that English law has always been fundamentally about proving loss and compensation, in cases where available, such as for personal injury, is on the low side, not the high side. Many very painful injuries, such as broken limbs, do not result in high awards for pain and suffering. Whilst amounts do vary significantly, a broken arm or leg could result in pain and suffering damages of maybe £5-15,000.00. What makes claims much bigger and results in those awards being publicised, are the cases where an ongoing loss caused by the negligence and injury can be demonstrated. For example, if an injury means that expert evidence is accepted that a person will not be able to work for many years, the ongoing loss of earnings will be calculated, as will any long term care costs for catastrophic personal injury cases. this is what make sfor big awards, not amounts awarded for pain and suffering.

What is professional negligence?

Professional negligence claims relate to negligent advice, action or inaction by experts in their fields. the key point here is that the duty of care expected of the professional is in line with their expertise. Professionals are expected to reach the standard of the “reasonably competent” solicitor, accountant and so on.

What on earth is volenti non fit injuria ?

Good question ! This is a latin term meaning that in some circumstances, a claim for negligence will not be able to succeed because the law will consider that the injured person consented. Clearly, this does not mean consented to be injured, but it means  consented to take part in the activity which caused the injury and that as such, the person took a calculated risk. This would apply to some sports such as rugby and boxing and there have been many well publicised cases where this legal concept and the boundaries of it have been argued by lawyers.